VIDEO: Paralympic Cycling Star Oz Sanchez On His Competition Diet

United States Paralympic cycling star Oz Sanchez understands the need to maintain a highly refined diet in order to compete at the highest level of athletic competition. His dieting strategies, though, are somewhat more unique than other athletes, and in part is due to restrictions he places on the kinds of foods he regularly eats.

“There’s no one cookie-cutter solution for everybody, everybody’s physiology is a little bit different, but what I do that’s worked really well for me is I, pretty much, don’t allow myself to snack,” Sanchez said at a Team USA media summit earlier this summer. “It isn’t to say that I don’t snack, but I make it a point to mitigate any kind of snacking whatsoever, and then I also follow what’s called ‘time-restricted eating windows,’ so I have basically the ability to eat whatever I want generally speaking. I am a pretty healthy eater so I’m not too concerned about eating burritos and pizza all day, but basically, my window’s anywhere from 8 to 10 hours where I can consume all my calories, and outside of that window … I only have water, essentially, so no calories whatsoever. And that seemed to have made the biggest difference in my ability to cut weight … than any other diet I ever tried has.”